


Side Effects

by wripinil (wripinel)



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-02 19:55:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18817894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wripinel/pseuds/wripinil
Summary: She filled the glass with wine and sat at the other end of the table from Envy, sipping slowly. She took her time. When the glass was half empty, she tapped the medication bottle on the table. He glanced up at her. The underlids of his eyes were bruised with dark circles, the scleras red and veined from crying.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Riza is not herself for the entire duration of this fic, and my flimsy explanation is, "Uhhh, she's...taking pills that alter her personality."
> 
> I started writing this fic I believe in mid October 2018 after I had a dream, then I deleted it on November 11, 2018.

[Unwritten Scene:]

[Riza walks into the pharmacy early in the morning. She has dark circles under her eyes. She has signed up to become a "test patient" for a new sleeping medication. The pharmacists talk amongst themselves about how that particular medication will take three more years to be approved by the Board. It's known to cause organ failure in the longterm, and strange side effects have been reported in patients...complete personality changes...]

 

~ ~ ~

  

It took Riza two years to realize she was no longer the same person after the war.

Distraction was necessary to stay adrift. She performed her duties with the precision of an automaton, and there was solace in the repetition of her job. She addressed all disruptions to her schedule with level-headed detachment. Remain calm, resolve the issue…

It was with that same detachment she viewed the threat before her. 

He was human now, and furious about it. (How such a transformation came about was unknown, but it had happened to all the second-generation homunculi when Father suddenly ceased to exist.) 

He stood hunched like an animal on the hood of a junk car in an abandoned lot, body on display in that skintight fabric, shouting mindless obscenities at her. Something about the humiliating defeat of his kind on what was supposed to have been the Promised Day… That was four days ago.

His fingers twitched on the trigger of a pistol as he frothed at her, face twisted with unimaginable hatred.

 

~ ~ ~

 

There’d been a chase, half an hour ago. She had accidentally come across his makeshift hideout in an abandoned alleyway and he’d attacked her, repeatedly throwing himself in her direction as if to strangle her with his bare hands. 

But his shoulders heaved with exhaustion early on. Clumsy and disoriented, frustrated by the loss of his once inhuman strength and finding himself practically useless without it.

Eventually he’d managed to grab her gun away from her, in a moment of sudden coordination. But It was no matter. She had another one tucked in the holster behind her, a third on the side of her boot, and a fourth under her jacket.

 

 ~ ~ ~

 

_ Routine and stability distracted her from the violent impulses that made no sense. (what if I sliced off my ear, what if I knocked over that pedestrian) (no, no you can't do any of that, that's insane. Be reasonable, lieutenant, you have a job to do, a country to save...) _

_ At first she'd wake up too early in the morning, eyes wide and frozen from the dreams of dead bodies and the smell of burning flesh. Now she took the medication to keep all that away. _

_ It was necessary to ignore the side effect warnings written on the label. _

_ The assurance that she would die one day calmed her. When she looked back on the last few years it felt like nothing she'd said or done was real. There was the end goal of course, putting the colonel in charge to fight the corruption in this country, and keeping him on the straight path, but what was she going to do with herself after that was done? Stay ready and on-call just in case? She would do that. But in the meantime it didn't matter if these little pills poisoned her from the inside every night. They'd do their work slowly. _

 

~ ~ ~ 

 

He pulled at the empty trigger over and over, click-click-click, not seeming to understand why it wouldn't shoot. His wild eyes wouldn't leave hers as his mouth continued moving, spewing nonsense.

She waited patiently for him to figure it out, and glanced with vague curiosity at the rise in his shorts, beneath his skirt. The outline was subtle in the black cloth.

He paused mid-rant to follow her gaze downward with confusion.

This was a human side effect of anger that he was unprepared for, it seemed. Blood flowing to unwanted places... All that rage and pent-up energy had to go somewhere...

It took him a while to realize what it was. Face tinted red, either with anger or embarrassment, he yanked his head back up and continued on with his speech like nothing just happened.

Riza had another of those horrible, random impulses. But this one did not seem quite so horrible as the many others that had come before it.

She walked toward the fallen homunculus, and he was confused by her unhurried approach. He hesitated before lifting the gun to aim again, shouting angry and vile words. She paid it all no mind. When she reached where he stood on the hood of the car, she had only to lean forward slightly to have a much closer inspection of the rise in his skirt.

His reaction was delayed. It took him a second to realize and snarl with disgust, jerking away from her too suddenly.

But he was tired from chasing her around earlier, and the rusted surface of the junkyard car was flaky and unstable. He lost his footing and stumbled. Her left hand snapped forward to grab his ankle, while the other wrapped around his upper thigh. He regained balance and swayed forward, confused. The lift in his skirt hadn't gone down.

For a moment he stared down at her, utterly baffled.

She couldn't help smiling a little when she heard the gun’s safety click off at last. He’d been so out of his mind earlier he hadn’t even managed to remember how a basic weapon worked, but now in the wake of shock from her actions it was all coming back to him.

Vaguely she registered him pressing it against her skull. Not pulling the trigger this time for some reason. He was still staring down at her, mouth opening and closing as if he wanted to speak but didn't know what to say. There was the sensation of the gun bumping into her head repeatedly, from the way his hand shook.

She brought her left hand up to grasp his wrist, and squeezed. He was so much weaker now without his stone. She felt the tendons forced to relax under the strength of her hold, and the gun clattered to the pavement.

She had hold of his wrist now, weaponless, and he tried to tug his hand away from her. 

  

~ ~ ~

 

The next time she saw him was in the pouring rain.

She carried groceries in one hand and an umbrella in the other. It was her habit to glance around before unlocking the door. Through the murky gloom she saw a figure crouched like a gargoyle in her neighbor's garden. It wore the telltale patterns of black fabric on pale white skin. 

"You followed me home?"

There was no response, but after staring a bit, she could now see that the figure was hugging itself. It was too far away in the rain to tell anything else.

Interesting.

Riza turned back her attention back to the door. Stepping inside, she left it open and went into the kitchen, which was warm from the hot water pipes lining the wall. A cold wind and a few raindrops followed her in.

As she put away perishables in the cooler, there was a soft, rattling click and the draft stopped.

She could smell the rot of him from across the room.When he'd attacked her in the junkyard he'd still been wearing a recent skin, barely a week old and relatively fresh, but now it had been almost a month since the defeat of the homunculi on the Promised Day and the subsequent loss of his (convenient) shapeshifting powers. She spoke without turning around.

"Bathe if you're going to stay here. I'll leave clothes on a chair in the hallway."

The smell faded and she heard the pipes rattle as a faucet opened up in the bathroom.

 

~ ~ ~

 

It was late and she went to bed before he came out; it had been over an hour. She faced the wall, eyes open in the darkness, but could hear everything going on behind her. The bathroom door opening. The drag of socked footsteps on the carpet. 

Eventually he found her bedroom door. He seemed to stand against it for a while, not coming in. 

When he finally approached he took his time, seemed to halt every few steps. His movements were incredibly slow when he lifted the blanket and crawled in behind her. She could feel the heat from the shower radiating off his human skin. 

He touched her arm, then thought better of it and drew back.

She closed her eyes and let the pills take her under. His breathing hadn't changed, so that meant he was still awake.

 

~ ~ ~

 

[Unwritten Scenes:] 

[The first day, he stares with unconcealed resentment and longing as she goes about her workout routine—his own human body wasting away from malnourishment and lack of activity]

[Riza finds out how skinny Envy is from not eating, and feeds him.]

[Finds out he really enjoys feeling small and being loomed over by her, it’s a parasite thing.]

[She disciplines him like Hayate, finds out he really enjoys being told what to do and misses his father. Misses his whole family. She gets him to trust her, to anticipate pleasure, to crave approval. She humiliates him, and gets him to associate it with pleasure.]

[Gets him consensually drugged one night and fucks into him with a strap on to break his hymen. He faints. There’s blood everywhere. She bathes him and soaks in a tub full of blood.]

  

~ ~ ~

 

 

When she walked into the kitchen she saw him slumped over the surface of her table. Dark tendrils of hair draped all around him, obscuring his face. His shoulders shook.

From her cabinet she took down an empty glass and sleeping medication. But she didn't intend to sleep tonight.

She filled the glass with wine and sat at the other end of the table from Envy, sipping slowly. She took her time. When the glass was half empty, she tapped the medication bottle on the table. He glanced up at her. The underlids of his eyes were bruised with dark circles, the scleras red and veined from crying. He looked so miserable.

Without a word she handed him the rest of the glass, and two pills.

He looked from her to the pills and back again.

The thing was...Envy trusted her now. He trusted her to take care of him the way she'd been doing diligently for the last few weeks. Feeding him, petting him, making him feel good. Protecting him from the world outside.

Sure she hurt him sometimes, but that wasn't much compared to all the tenderness he'd never experienced before. She always made him forget the pain as soon as it happened. A kiss to soothe a bite, a moan to overlap a scream. His (now human) body was littered with bruises and cuts, but she always left him shaking with pleasure when it was over. No matter how often she made him cry, she always made it better, whispering false kindnesses to him until the tears stopped.

So he trusted her. And his eyes never left hers while he swallowed the pills. As if to prove to her he wanted to be good and follow orders.

The clock hands on the wall read 8:03 PM. The medication was supposed to kick in at 8:50.

 

~ ~ ~

 

By 8:35 he was a mess and she was dragging him to the bedroom with him leaning on her shoulder. He groaned and hunched forward, convulsively swallowing back the bile. Apparently drinking even a tiny amount of alcohol in combination with the pills, and without food, was not the wisest decision.

She lead him over to the bed and stripped off his clothes. His face was pale and sweaty, and he looked like he was going to be sick.

"Riza?"

There was that genitalia again, whatever it was, hiding beneath his penis and located where his testicles should have been. It looked vaguely like a woman's, but did it even work the same way? Time and time again she'd fingered at it while sucking him off to distract him, pressing up against the hymen-like barrier inside and ignoring his cries of pain. Trying to figure out how to get past it.

Perhaps her fingers were just not strong enough.

She reached under her bed for a box where she'd stored lubricant, and a tool. In truth it was little more than a rubber cucumber-shaped appendage attached to some crude straps. She slicked it up with the lube, and buckled it around her hips while Envy's eyelids fluttered, struggling to stay open, mouth open with a line of drool escaping down his chin. The medication was pulling him under.

"R...iza...?"

Out of habit, she leaned down to suck him again. He was already partially hard just from being underneath her, his body reacting to the ritual like Pavlov's dog. With the help of her lips and tongue he grew fully hard in seconds, even as his eyes completely closed. His breathing was deepening, and slower.

But the lids twitched open again when she sat up and went about figuring how to fit the head of the contraption into his opening. Pushing into him, unsuccessfully the first few tries.

"Riza...please don't...I hate it when you do that..." he slurred. His eyes were closed and she was sure he wasn't even really aware of anything that was happening.

"It hurts when you do that...it really, really hurts..."

She gripped his thin, bony hips for leverage and pulled down, shoving in one single, powerful motion.

It worked like a charm.

Envy's face completely paled at the same time she heard a sharp tearing sound and felt the warmth of blood spurt onto her thighs. The hymen barrier was finally broken. She should have tried this sooner.

A horrible, cracked whining sound was rising out of Envy's throat as his eyes widened to the size of saucers.

She punctuated the moment with another thrust.

He'd begun screaming, but his throat was so strained that the sounds were more like breathy, drawn-out squeaks. As if he couldn't remember how to scream.

"Do you have any idea what killing those innocent people did to me?” she asked, calmly.

The red wetness had seeped past her thighs and dripped onto her knees now, soaking the sheets below, and the tangy iron smell of blood filled the air. Envy's aborted shrieks were just a background noise to her.

"Edward told us what you said in Gluttony’s stomach. You shot one child in the head, and I had to shoot hundreds of them after you...along with their mothers and fathers.

He said you were laughing when you confessed to him.”

Distantly, Riza noted that her voice got slower and calmer despite her rage growing to its climax, or perhaps because of it. She felt much more aware than she wanted to. Utterly focused. The same thing happened in the war when she'd wanted nothing more than to lose her mind and disappear.

"How could you laugh about something like that?"

She heard another sharp crack, and Envy went completely silent as his eyes rolled all the way back into his head. His body slumped down into the mattress. It couldn't have been the pills, he must have fainted.

She pulled back and out, unbuckling the strap on. Looking down she was met with a surreal sight. The sheer amount of blood that pooled out from such a tiny opening was incredible, like a small red lake spilling out across the entire bed.

She picked him up and carried him into the bathroom, to put him in the tub.

 

~ ~ ~

 

[Unwritten Scene:]

 

[She bathes him. He awakens and tries to get away from her, passes out again from the pills and blood loss. He’s unconscious for 24 hours. During this time she talks with Roy. She cares for Envy, soothes him and makes him feel better, but also continues violating his vaginal opening, finding out he has an unusual amount of pleasure nerves inside. She fists him and he cums all over her hand, afterwards she makes him suck it off her fingers, he’s begging her to stop, the pleasure is so intense it’s hurting him.]

[In the morning she wakes up and Envy is about to stab her but can’t, he’s crying and doesn’t have anywhere else to go. She kisses him, gently for the first time, and he melts and lets her roll over on top of him. He responds very positively to the gentleness.]

 

~ ~ ~

 

Rising out of sleep was always such a gradual process, the transition from dreaming to the real world. And everything that happened just after opening one’s eyes, never seemed quite real. 

Which is why Riza’s reflexes were sluggish when she vaguely registered Envy’s shaking thighs straddled on either side of her torso. The heat of his sitting weight pressed against her stomach. And the glint of the kitchen knife in his hand. 

Tears shined on his cheeks, slipping down fast. The arm holding the knife shook. He stared down at her with wide eyes full of hate and love and confusion. 

Slowly her hand came up and rested against his thigh, where a tattoo of immortality had once been. It was just clear flesh now. 

She rubbed against the spot soothingly and shushed him. “It’s alright.”

Envy sniffled, and quietly keened under his breath.

“It’s alright,” she repeated.

Envy squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head almost violently from side to side, as if to clear his thoughts, whimpering as he began to slightly sway back and forth.

“It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright…” slowly Riza rose and brought her hands up to smooth across Envy’s sides, coaxing him to come down. He brought the knife higher, as if afraid she would reach up and take it away from him. But she had no such intention.

“Come here…”

She pulled him down, inch by shaking, resistant inch. Until finally he collapsed on top of her and began sobbing openly into her neck. The hand holding the knife swung into the mattress, stabbing through feathers.

Riza was very tired and barely aware, but she brought Envy’s knees scooting up even higher, until they were under her armpits, and then took hold of his thighs. He made a muffled little “mmp” sound when she flipped him over.

She pushed his knees up until they were next to his ears. His entire body was folded in half, the area between his legs spread apart and raised up for her.

She moved her hands from under his knees to his hips, keeping them up. 

She kissed him, and he opened his mouth for her and sucked wetly on her tongue, wanton and needy. He quivered in her grip and his ankles curled behind her head. His mouth stayed open whenever she pulled back, panting and ready for her each time she returned.

She’d never been this gentle with him before, this tender. He responded well to it.

When his hips twitched uncontrollably and his breaths deepened, she released his mouth. And didn’t go back.

“Envy…”

He stilled at the sound of her voice, the soft way she said his name. 

“Envy, I love you.”

His eyes widened, and he stared up at her with an emotion she couldn’t name. Fear…and hope, maybe. His lips were shiny and spit-soaked swollen from her kisses.

“I love you, Envy.”

He whined and bucked against her, but met nothing except air.

“Do you know how much I love you?”

He was crying again. His eyes closed and his head shook back and forth, trying to force away her words, trying not to hear them.

“I do. You’re perfect, you know. Perfect and beautiful, and I didn’t mean to hurt you like that…”

His cock strained below her chin, wanting her, but she refused, not yet, not yet… She leaned back down for another kiss, and he moaned helplessly into her mouth.

She raised his hips up even higher, pushed his knees further into the mattress on either side of his head, until the tip of it was directly under his own mouth. She kept eye contact with him the whole time. 

“You should love yourself, Envy…”

She helped him, pushing his hips up more and more. He stared at her with hesitation, before slowly craning his neck forward and holding his mouth open over his length. Reluctant. He looked up at her one last time. When his lips finally closed around it he made one quiet sound of shocked pleasure.

She kissed his nose. 

“Just the way I love you.”

She felt his entire body shudder and his eyes shot open as he screamed. But she kept him folded, kept him in position long enough for him to keep suckling on his own heat and drink it down. He sobbed, fresh tears running down his face and trickling off under his ears. 

“Oh, Envy, Envy…”

When he was done, she gently unfolded him and slowly lowered his legs onto the mattress like glass, like precious, delicate things.

He was still crying and hadn’t stopped. The sobs were worse now, all control lost. He closed his eyes and wailed like a child, and after a few seconds brought his fists up to his face as if trying to hide. She held his wrists apart on either side of his head, the balled-up fists clenched tight.

His legs kicked weakly at her, useless and petulant. 

“Where would you go if I was dead, Envy? Who will take care of you? Who will feed you and keep you warm?”

His rising shrieks only gained in volume, trying to drown her out.

“Who’s going to make you feel good, Envy? Who would ever want to make you feel good, except me?”

He paused and gasped for air. “I h-hate you…”

“Hmm?”

“I HATE YOU!” he opened their eyes and screamed. “I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU!”

She just smiled down at him. “I know.”

He was caught in her gaze, and shrank back down in fear…

“I still love you, Envy. I’ll love you no matter what. Did your family love you like that?”

 

~ ~ ~

 

[Unwritten Scene:]

[A few days later she invites Roy over and cruelly urges him to join her in violating Envy, who is utterly broken at this point, helpless and unable to move from being so upset. Roy tries to make her see what’s happened to her. He’s horrified at what she’s become.]

[In the end Roy stops Riza from torturing Envy anymore. Edward comes by and rescues Envy, taking him away. Envy is very traumatized from the experience and misses Riza due to Stockholm syndrome but eventually he heals and gets together with Edward. Riza has a long talk with Roy and gets rid of the pills and her personality goes back to normal. I wanted Riza and Envy to stay together in the end, but I couldn't make that happen even if Riza got off the pills, it just wouldn't work out because of Envy's Stockholm syndrome, so he's gonna go be with Edward. I have another scene in my head though...]


	2. Art

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Illustration by teasnake!)
> 
> "You followed me home?"


	3. Chapter 3

Sunlight stretched across the floor from the living room windows.

On the couch Envy nursed a cup of tea, fingers wrapped around the warm ceramic. Both knees were drawn up, squeezing his body into the furthest corner of the armrest.

On the other end sat Riza, hair clip gone. She leaned forward over the coffee table, knees braced and apart, and swirled milk into her cup, the dark bitter fluid inside lightening to amber with each circle of the spoon.

They both sat in silence, until the light outside had started to glare brighter in the rays of the setting sun.

Riza stroked her thumb along the handle of her empty mug, staring down at the bottom of it. Envy had never changed his tense position or looked in her direction.

Despite their last two encounters, there was an air of nervousness now. This was the first time Edward had left them alone together.

It had been three months since Envy had gone to live with Edward. For the first two weeks Riza went through withdrawal from the pills with Roy's help, vomiting and nauseous, unable to sleep through the night. By the sixth day she'd collapsed and dreamed once again of fire, and rotting bodies in the desert sun, the terrible screams of families. 

But when she awoke...it was the past few years she'd been asleep. Everything felt more real now, sharper. The edges of the coffee table, the rattle of the faucet, the cold shock of water in the shower. Colors were more vibrant. She could finally see just how blue the tiles were, whereas before she wasn't sure she'd noticed the color at all.

And the memories of what she'd done...

"Do you want to go for a walk?" she asked.

He nodded, and she set her cup down to go grab her coat.

 

~ ~ ~

 

It was the start of spring. The air was chilled but damp, the smell of fresh soil in the air. Insects fluttered over the new flowers, sampling their sweet nectar.

An earlier windstorm had sent small pink petals airborne, and they'd landed in droves all over the ground, creating a fluffy carpet that crunched under their feet as they walked to the nearby lake.

At the railing, Riza leaned forward on her elbows. Ducks quacked down below, paddling with their feet and dipping upside down to skim their beaks along the bottom of the lake.

Envy was wearing a thick sweater, but he held onto his arms as if he were still cold. Riza considered offering him her jacket as well, but that seemed... inappropriate.

Eventually he copied her position and leaned against the railing, one foot coming up to toe restlessly at the bars. She knew how much he hated wearing shoes, but it seemed he'd grown used to them with time.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Roy offered to talk with her about it, but she couldn't even begin to wrap her mind around the atrocities she'd committed. The torture she put another being through. Not only had she...raped him...

She remembered the way she'd latched into the core of his heart. Promising him forgiveness only to snatch it back, over and over.

The pills had put her in a trance-like state, or so Roy told her, but even so, she'd retained a measure of awareness and deliberation throughout it all. The way one makes choices in a dream.

His desperate need to obey and follow someone's orders, unable to break out of his family's programming... she remembered the unique pleasure it had given her. The intoxicating power. Taking him from mind-numbing pleasure to pitiable servitude to screaming rage in the space of an hour made her feel like a god over this creature.

And now, to live with that.

To know what she'd done...

 

~ ~ ~  

 

"It was my choice," she said suddenly, looking down at the ducks, and Envy jumped at the sound. 

"What happened in Ishval... I pinned the blame for my mistakes on you. I know you were following orders from your leader, the same as me. You enjoyed it, but that is..."

She averted her gaze from the ducks to look at the greying clouds in the sky.

"Your brother, Pride, told me that he recognized his own sin in the way I'd shot those innocent people. That I'd taken pride in my aim. He wasn't wrong. It was a small distraction from the horror. I couldn't feel much of anything by the end. The better part of me was gone with each bullet I fired."

A spring thunderstorm rumbled on the horizon, coming closer. But for now where they stood was still in a patch of sunlight, the clouds not yet overhead. 

"The fact that you enjoyed following orders and I didn't is not...that's not an excuse for what I did to you."

She glanced to her left and saw the way Envy had hunched into himself. Whether as a reaction to the cold, or her words, was unclear. He leaned his entire body against the railing, arms folded over his chest. Staring at the water.

"I understand why you laughed about it now. I..." _it was_   _the sense of superiority, the vengeance,_ "...I know now."

A grey duck with speckles, wings outstretched, climbed out and shook off water at the edge of the pond. Dry feathers ruffled.

"You made Maes Hughes believe that his own wife shot him in his last moments but that doesn't..."

"He didn't believe that," Envy's voice was small. "He knew it was me."

Riza was quiet. Then, "The way you told it made it sound like—"

"It wasn't like that." Envy was holding himself together, arms wrapped around. "I just wanted to make it sound more...more..."

"...Worse than it was."

_Roy told me what he was going to do to you. I was grateful that you escaped, because I didn't want him to be consumed by his own hatred. But then I allowed it to happen to me. And now he's seen the monster I've become..._

"Did you actually enjoy following orders? Was all of the joy you took in killing fake?"

"No. I don't know. I don't think so. I liked it. I liked watching you humans turn into your worst selves. I liked you all crawling in the dirt like worms, I liked seeing your morals and ideals disappear under the slightest pressure."

Riza was quiet. The question was obvious.

"But...I didn't like it when you..."

 _Not when it was directed at you,_ she thought. _Not when you're on the receiving end._

 

~ ~ ~

 

"Is that...really how humans love each other?" Envy traced his finger along the edge of the railing.

"No. Love is what Roy does for me, or what Edward does for you. Love is like friendship, it's good, it's not supposed to hurt."

"So...is it like what we did the last two times?"

 

~ ~ ~

 

It was the first time Edward had left them alone. But not the first time they'd been alone.

Edward had begun bringing Envy over to Riza's house for visits (why, she didn't know and didn't ask). Sometimes accompanied by Alphonse and Mei. They would bring dinner and lunch, or else they would help Riza prepare food.

Riza remembered the first time they came over. 

She'd been taking glasses down from the cabinet. The other four were in the living room, talking amongst themselves about a new upcoming alchemist, "The Life Alchemist." Apparently able to transform humans into animals and back again. His work was full of potential, but also eerily similar to Shou Tucker's, which Ed was currently shouting about.

Riza heard the creak of a floorboard and a quiet sound. An intake of breath.

She turned her head and saw Envy looking at her from around the doorway. 

His mouth opened, as if to speak, before snapping closed.

A month had gone by without her seeing him. He looked much healthier now, his face was less gaunt and filled out. He didn't wear shoes in the house; instead one of his bare feet rubbed against the other, fidgeting. He wore long pants that were too small for him, and a large coat over his shirt. His hands held onto the doorway, she could see the knuckles whitening.

Riza stared back. Side effects from the pills or not, nothing was ever going to make up for what she'd done. 

"Envy..."

His eyes widened and he immediately vanished. In the living room, voices laughed and chatted with each other.

The glass in her hand seemed to tremble when she set it down on the counter.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Many dinners and lunches followed that first one, with Envy and Riza always avoiding eye contact, and the others talking to fill up the silence.

 

~ ~ ~

 

The second time they'd been alone...Edward had been distracted, debating with Alphonse at the other end of the house, near the backyard. In the kitchen Riza had been gathering up some preparatory supplies for lunch, and Envy had watched her again from the corner of the doorway.

At some point he must have slipped away from the others.

This time, she did not look at or speak to him. She let him stare at her as she took out ingredients from the cooler and laid them out across the counter. Edward, Alphonse, and Mei would be in shortly to help.

Envy moved from the doorway and began taking plates and cutlery from the cabinets, setting places in the dining room and filling up water glasses.

He came back in and shook pasta out from the plastic packaging, heating water on the stove. He wasn't wearing the heavy jacket again today, instead he wore what looked like a tight women's blouse with a scooped neckline that nearly came off his shoulders. 

As he shook salt into the boiling water, she had to reach around him for a spatula.

Body heat seemed to radiate off him, she could feel it coming off his exposed skin, she sensed his muscles tense and hold still. When she stood next to him to open a can of tomatoes, she heard him swallow audibly.

_This is the first time I've seen you without that jacket on...Edward's been helping you train..._

She turned around to get a jar of spices, and when she came back Envy was facing her. 

They looked into each other's eyes. 

Riza's gaze lowered, roaming down over his body, staring at the way the clothes fit him. When her eyes stopped at his pants, she saw his knees wobble just the tiniest bit. And that was it for her.

She grabbed his arm, one hand cradled behind his head, and rushed him backwards until Envy inhaled sharply when his back hit the wall, cabinets rattling as their mouths collided.

Two hands were not enough, she needed to touch him everywhere, all at once, face, shoulders, chest, she couldn't decide as her mouth tried to devour his, tried to say how sorry she was without words.

She tilted her head for a better angle, deeper. Envy made the sweetest little sounds into the impassioned kiss, struggling to keep up with her pace, mouth opening to hers.

Still kissing him she crouched down and lifted him up from his thighs, bracing his shoulders against the wall as she straightened. She bounced him once as she shifted to hold him around the waist. His hardness was obvious against her stomach when his legs wrapped around her.

Wedged in a corner behind the oven, they would be hidden if someone were to walk by the entryway.

She pulled back for a moment, their mouths wet, and looked into his eyes. The pupils were so expanded his eyes were nearly entirely black. Her hand slid down his stomach but she had to ask, she had to make sure, it really seemed like he wanted this too, but...

"Do you want—"

He nodded vigorously and held onto her hand.

She fumbled with the button of his pants, pulled down the zipper, and shoved her wrist down past the waistband. He held back a cry and closed his eyes tight, biting his lower lip when her fingers rubbed under him, tracing lower, (God he was so  _wet_ ) but didn't penetrate, still it made him shake in her grasp, legs tense.

His nails dug into her shoulders from the effort of holding still, from staying quiet as her fingers wrapped and pulled around him, and when the act was done she took her hand out and held it up before her eyes. His ejaculate glistened like pearl strands between her fingers. He watched her, his face flushed, eyes unfocused.

Afterwards she went to wash her hands in the bathroom and splash cold water on her face, while Envy sat at the counter and tried to still his shaking legs before the others came back.

 

~ ~ ~

 

After that they avoided eye contact again, but for a very different reason. And when their gazes did accidentally meet across the table, it felt like a conversation, a promise. 

 

~ ~ ~

 

The second time had been in the basement during the very next dinner visit.

Riza needed to get something from there, she couldn't remember what it was, all she knew was that Envy slipped away to go down with her and then somehow she'd gotten him on all fours on the workbench.

Her want was so strong she couldn't help grinding against him from behind.

She'd felt a little ridiculous, having nothing to speak of down there, but he moaned at the miming of the act, at the intention behind it, and the sound made her hips jerk forward twice more with desire. It felt like she was hard, like her parts had somehow swollen and tensed into something much more rigid.

His weak arms had lowered him all the way on the workbench until he was facedown and arched like a cat, knees spreading wide, trying to get her to press exactly where he wanted it.

She gave up using her hips and nearly tore off the elastic of his tights, shoving them down. Her fingers pressed up against his hot wet entrance and he mewled at her touch. 

"Do you want—"

" _Please?_  Please Riza? Please, please...?"

"You want my fingers inside you?"

His sounds were desperately affirmative. 

Riza hesitated. She remembered how badly it hurt him the last time she'd done this, the day after she broke his hymen. The way he'd screamed, his entire body convulsing... He was far more sensitive in this place than a human woman.

Carefully she inserted the tips of her middle and index fingers, barely brushing the inner edges of his entrance, and his reaction was immediate, legs shaking. He called her name, muffled into the workbench.

She wasn't sure if he came or not, so she continued lightly brushing against that wet inner skin, pink, throbbing, and partially folding inside out with need. A scream was rising up from him, hot slick dripping out freely over her fingers.

Hunger overcame her as his back arched completely and his legs nearly slipped off the bench, she ducked down to lick a stripe against that pulsing inner slip and kiss it with her tongue.

She could still taste him after she pulled back.

 

~ ~ ~

 

They were caught. She realized this when she saw Edward's shadowed silhouette up on the stairway. He must have found out Envy was missing and come down.

Seeing the angry disapproval in his eyes when they came back up was what made her realize they needed to stop doing this. They needed to talk first.  

 

~ ~ ~

 

_Is it like what we did the last two times?_

Riza stared into the distance, remembering. 

Envy shivered again, and she finally offered her coat, disregarding propriety and personal space. She wouldn't touch him anymore, but there was no sense in letting him be cold.

The white of her coat contrasted against the dark spikes of his hair, he held the corners of the collar together under his chin. He was silent. Then...

"Do you want to be friends?"

She looked at him questioningly. "Is this because of what I said about love?"

He nodded.

She didn't answer. There were several things they still needed to talk about. The first and most important was...

"I raped you."

He flinched very badly and turned away, face contorting.

"I manipulated and controlled you for a month, I played with your feelings, I tortured you mentally and physically."

"You were..." he sounded on the verge of tears. "Edward said you were on those pills..."

"I was still aware. I made choices that I can't take back. The pills affected my decision making and moral judgement, but that doesn't matter. It's obvious that I still can't control myself around you, the last two times I..."

"But I wanted it."

"You didn't want it when I first did it. You were begging me to stop after I drugged you, in the bathtub, you were—"

"STOP!" Envy put his hands over his ears and started outright crying, shaking his head. "STOP, STOP!"

She felt the worst kind of pain in her heart watching him cry like this, watching him sob into his hands. "I-I want you..." he said through the tears. "I want you to love me, I want to love you. I want us to be together. It was...really nice the last two times... Why can't we just pretend you didn't...do that, why can't we just..."

"You tried to kill me afterwards. You tried to stab me with a knife."

"No..." he shook his head.

"You wanted me dead, because I humiliated you. I hurt you."

"But then you said you loved me..."

"I made you cry. I forced you to suck yourself off and you were screaming afterwards that you hated me. My saying I loved you was a manipulation."

Envy's eyes were completely watered up. 

"That wasn't love. Edward loves you. He's your friend, he protects you."

"But I want you to love me..."

"I hurt you." The clouds had rolled in now, casting everything in grey. A few drops of rain began coming down. "Come on, we need to head back." 

As they left the lake, Envy spoke up.

"You're not on the pills anymore. You won't hurt me again."

"That's true. I won't hurt you again. I..." _this is the most useless apology_ , "I am so sorry for what I did to you. And I will never hurt you again."

 

 _I'll never let myself be in a position where I have power over you again._  

~ ~ ~

 

At Riza's house, Edward was waiting for them on the steps. His look toward Envy was questioning as if asking, is this alright? are you okay? and Riza was grateful for his presence, for the comfort he must give Envy.

 

 ~ ~ ~

 

After they left, she remembered the first time. It was on that rusty old car, after he'd chased her in the alley...

 

~ ~ ~ 

 

[Flashback]

 

She let go of his wrist, but only so she could use both her hands to roll down the waistband of his shorts, savoring his cry of alarm. His erection bobbed in the air tentatively, seeming to reflect the confusion of its owner. 

Intoxicated by the fast rise and fall of his panicked breaths, she cupped her hands around his narrow waist and slid them down to the swell of his oddly feminine buttocks. His muscled thighs, his shaking knees, the narrow calves. It was with minimal effort that she coaxed those legs to cave in, folding and collapsing on top of the car. 

He was stubborn, trying to remain upright at least by sitting, but she could feel the abdominal muscles above his pelvis shaking too, newly human and so weak. All she had to do was push a little and he fell back, arms curled up against his chest, unsure what to do.

Between his sprawled legs on the hood of the car she could see a slit which had previously been hidden. A pink crease...

She spread his thighs apart and he flinched but did nothing to stop her, frozen as he watched her put her fingers to his vaginal opening. The flesh was paper thin and delicate, but dry as a bone.

She licked her fingertips to wet them and pressed inward.

There was a barrier, as her fingers traced up against a wall of tissue thicker than any woman's hymen. She jabbed at it. A spasm, followed by a frightened sound, told her to stop. She pulled her hand away and wrapped it around his length instead.

She wasn't aroused, not sexually anyway.  She couldn't put a name to this rush of feeling inside her.

When he came it was dry, she felt his whole body tense under her, hips bucking as he pulsed but released no fluid. She dragged it out until she was certain it was over. Her fingers went back to tracing that strange, impenetrable labia, every gentle touch making him shake.

His eyes were glazed and unfocused. He swallowed. Hesitant and quiet now. "What was...what did you...?"

The throb between her legs was low and insistent, and she realized what it was now. Power.

She'd picked up her gun and left him lying there on the hood of the car.

 

~ ~ ~


End file.
